Exit the Mark

The exact moment of death is as difficult to establish with currencies as it is with persons. The German mark has long since been pronounced incurably sick, and its fever has risen beyond the ability of existing thermometers to measure it. The events of the week tend to the conclusion that its definite decease can be dated at mid-September, 1923. In a single week, the amazing output of 389,000,000,000,000 of marks -- or more than all outstanding marks put together-- was seen. The discount rate of the Reichsbank stood at the unparalleled rate of 90%. Individual German States like Dantzig are seeking to establish new currencies of their own, and the Berlin government is frantically at work trying to invent some new gold-convertible currency for the nation.

Germany's rate of currency depreciation and her State deficits now far exceed those of Soviet Russia. In foreign exchange, rates for the mark are so vastly depreciated that they can be expressed only in incalculably large figures. In both London and New York prominent banks have refused to quote, buy or sell the vanishing German currency any longer. It is likewise being stricken off the prominent European stock exchanges, where ordinarily foreign exchange is traded in actively.

The mark has been an extraordinary long time dying. Now, at last, it is apparently dead.